Starbucks at your door step, yum!
After reporting record quarterly sales, hitting roughly half a billion in profit, Starbucks is hinting at their next innovation: drink delivery.
For Starbucks addicts, this could be just what the doctor ordered (although most of us on staff here would prefer an IV drip, but whatever). You can soon order and pay in advance with the Starbucks app, but the company says they’re going to be offering their version of “e-commerce on steroids.”
The delivery service is said to launch in the second half of 2015, sending out food and drinks to select areas in the United States.
Delivered to your desk daily
“Imagine the ability to create a standing order that Starbucks delivered hot or iced to your desk daily,” Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said in a conference call.
When asked about delivery, Starbucks Global Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ryan said it is still “early days” and the chain isn’t ready to tip its hand with more details but that it’s “moving full speed ahead.”
Starbucks added nearly 1,600 net new stores in 2014, making the total retail store count now 21,366, but not all 21k will offer delivery.
How does delivery work? Who can order?
The company says it is still developing the program, so little is known about the service, however it has been made clear that only Starbucks loyalty program members will be able to order, and it will be done through the mobile order and pay app that is launching soon.
It remains unclear what the minimum order will be, but Schultz’s statement about items being delivered “to your desk daily” has us thinking that this could even be a subscription service wherein at a certain time on a certain day, your drink shows up.
We are also speculating that delivery could be restricted to extremely densely populated areas and locations that are on the first floor of major office buildings so a delivery run is just a handful of staff constantly rushing up and down the elevator with drinks and food.
Starbucks has already toyed with the idea of food truck-style locations, but this delivery option is the company’s way of thinking digitally.
We hope that there are no restrictions and that Starbucks will wake us up in the morning at our homes with some fresh espresso and hot chocolate. Yum.
